Even Textbooks Can Bring Back Memories

...yes, not necessarily good ones, but still....

Here's something to write about in your journal. Remember those days you spent in the classroom poring over your textbook and trying to stay awake? Remember those long nights at the dorm where you had to balance work, study, parties, grades, family, and friends? Remember those heavy textbooks you had to buy with your lunch money (make that lunch money enough to buy you lunch for three weeks)? Remember those darn textbooks?

Now, it's time to make a textbook open your mind.

You have two options: You either have a textbook lying around the house, or you dont.

1) If you have a textbook lying around the house, get the first one that you can find. Now, write about it. No, you are not writing a summary of the textbook or a textbook review. You are writing about how that textbook made you feel back then, and how it makes you feel now.

Did you feel at a loss to explain stoichiometry way back when? How do you feel now, years and years later, when you either don't need it, or aren't at a loss to explain it any longer? Did you feel that you couldn't memorize history dates no matter how hard you tried? How do you feel now, years and years later, when you either can call up those same dates, or find that you don't need every detail of history to see you through your day?

2) If you don't have a textbook lying around the house, then try to recall what textbooks you once used. The first textbook that comes to mind should be the most memorable one, so use it. Now, remember how it made you feel. Ask yourself these questions:

a) What did I really love about that textbook? Would I recommend it to people studying the subject it tackled?

b) What did I really not like about that textbook? What would I tell people if they asked me about it?

You can write an essay, a poem, or even a story. But keep it to a minimum of two pages. You want to save the pages of your journal for more entries.